Pace workload might prompt Watson recall

Sports writer for The Age

The increasingly popular conclusion that Australia no longer needs Shane Watson will be challenged in the lead-up to the third Test because of the toil imposed on Australia's specialist seamers in the second Test in Port Elizabeth.

Watson's progressive return to bowling in training after a calf injury has been made more significant by the 150-plus overs of South Africa's first innings at St George's Park.

The only time Australia has been in the field longer in the past year was on the tour of India last autumn, when the home team twice made the tourists bowl 155 overs.

As South Africa dug in to make 423, Australian captain Michael Clarke abandoned his usual aggressive tactics to adopt a harm-minimisation strategy, especially for strike-bowlers Mitchell Johnson and Ryan Harris.

Advertisement

Off-spinner Nathan Lyon and paceman Peter Siddle were the workhorses - between them they bowled 80 overs - but Clarke became increasingly reluctant to use Johnson and Harris once it became clear the second new ball was not going to account for the diligent South African batsmen.

The last 40 overs of the Proteas' innings was effectively a strike-bowler-free zone. Harris did not bowl at all while Johnson bowled only three overs. Their combined total of 52 overs, while heavy, was far less than what was asked of Lyon and Siddle.

Siddle's stock-bowler role was starkly illustrated when wicketkeeper Brad Haddin had a stint up at the stumps while he was bowling.

Australian coach Darren Lehmann rejected the idea that Australia would preserve anyone for a future Test. ''It's a Test match - just the way it is. You can't worry about it or look too far ahead,'' he said.

Nevertheless, though happy to have kept South Africa to fewer than three runs an over in its first innings, Lehmann conceded his bowlers had to cope with a heavy workload, considering the four-day gap between the Port Elizabeth and Cape Town Tests.

''You don't want to bowl 150 overs in any Test, do you?'' he said. ''[But] once you get past 150 overs teams are usually 500 or 600 [runs]. We managed to keep them down to 423, so that was a pleasing effort.''

Century-maker JP Duminy (123) said South Africa was encouraged to have kept Australia in the field for so long. ''In the back of our mind we knew that if we kept them in the field for a long period of time that it would wear them down,'' he said.

''They haven't really been out in the field for a long period of time [in recent months] so it was definitely a game-plan of ours. We knew that if we [then] got the ball in the right areas … there'd be a bit of tired legs and tired eyes.''

Lehmann declined to say whether Australia's bowling workload made him more eager for Watson to be ready in time for the third Test.

''We love five bowlers, as we've always said. The hardest thing is fitting that in after a great Test win, and he hadn't bowled before this Test match,'' he said.

Australia's reserve seamers are James Pattinson and Jackson Bird, both of whom have produced impressive performances in training in the past three weeks.

If Australia feels it must have a seam bowler among its top-seven batsman - Watson or reserve all-rounder Moises Henriques - the issue then shifts to which batsman would miss out.

Shaun Marsh and Alex Doolan both failed in the first innings at St George's Park, but earned plaudits from Lehmann and Clarke after the first Test.

If Watson is seen as a must for Cape Town, selectors may scrutinise Chris Rogers, whose first three innings in this series have produced a total of 10 runs.

Rogers would be extremely unlucky to be axed, given he scored centuries in the last two Tests of the home summer.